A good sponsorship program, a powerful academy and a complementary events plan will improve the quality of your sports club’s tournament calendar.
Sports clubs need to develop an attractive tournament calendar that appeals to players of all levels. That is why it is essential to organize a strategy to attract sponsors, alternative events and official tournaments that find the needs of all the clients of your club. Even more so when the new situation caused by Covid-19 has turned sports clubs into total leisure centers where you can enjoy family life during your free time.
However, the competition is very high and all sports clubs carry out activities with which to attract the greatest number of players to their facilities. Therefore, only organizations that work in a decided philosophy, add value and manage to change the dynamics will be able to gain a space in a rising market.
The creation of a complete tournament calendar involves understanding the idiosyncrasies of your club and the sporting objectives in the short, medium and long term. To do this, you will have to establish a series of KPI’s that help you determine the average level, sports interests and the capacity of the social mass of your sports club. All this data will help you make better decisions and develop a tournament calendar according to the demands of your target audience.
Measuring your data will make you work based on an objective analysis, knowing in which actions you have to emphasize your attention and developing various recruitment channels that differentiate your sports club. For this, it is essential to create a powerful marketing and communication strategy that positions you and improves your brand image in front of your competition. This dynamic will help you channel the largest number of players to your club at a time when sport is one of the fastest growing sectors, with an average weekly activity growth of 2.5 million during 2020 according to a Strava report.
From NGM Golf & Sports Consulting we propose four recommendations where you can develop a complete and attractive tournament calendar for all types of players:
1-. Acquisition of sponsors:
Sports clubs need to generate a series of tournaments that make them local references within their sector, for this reason it is essential to attract sponsors who raise the budget to invest so that the experience of the players during the tournament must be the main purpose. The search of sponsors will therefore have an added value in the strategy of both tournaments and promotion of the club, since it will also improve the brand image of the club.
It is essential to give value to the club’s locations, enhancing the direct impacts both online and offline and the scope that it may have for interested brands. A complete tournament calendar will also help the brand to approach different target audiences, since depending on the type of tournament one type of client or another will attend (children’s tournaments with the whole family, adult tournaments, etc.)
2-. 360º events:
Tournament schedules should not be a graph paper with only sporting events taking all the attention. The development of a planning of complementary activities, such as initiation courses, clinics, specific blow tournaments, wine or other product tastings, multisport tent, among others, are a fundamental plan to attract the whole family to your club during the days of tournaments. Diversifying the activities will also help you attract different sponsors, since by developing complementary activities you diversify the target audience.
In addition, your club will improve its reputation and begin to attract a new type of customers who, if well channeled, will eventually become an end user of your star product (golf, padel, tennis, etc.). For this, it is essential that the tournament calendar and event planning be combined with a total digital marketing strategy that helps you capture the largest number of leads, convert them into users and finally attract them to your club as future clients.
3-. Active sports academy:
Today more than ever, sports clubs are becoming more and more a center for social gathering and a local landmark. That is why it is essential to stand out from the competition and that the local society understands that your sports club is the one that meets the best conditions to invest free time for the whole family. To do this, you must actively work with local authorities and organize an action plan that involves society in your sports club.
Generating attractive tournament calendar and activities will help local players refer to your sports club. In addition, the achievement of a series of objectives, such as generating new players, generating a brand image, developing activities with local organizations, will increase your presence among the citizens of your area.
4-. Actives academy:
A tournament calendar is lame if it does not accommodate your club’s sports academy. It is essential that those players who are starting get involved little by little in the social life of your sports club. For this, a tournament planning must be developed that includes events for all levels and that manages to mix more experienced players with less experienced ones without implying a decrease in the quality of the test for the players.
The academy itself must generate a series of synergies and activities to attract new players, implementing experiences for all types of clients. In addition, a series of complementary actions must be managed that allow a development function to be carried out during the sports club’s tournament calendar. These actions must be reciprocal, improving the health of both your sports club and your sports academy and promoting added value for the sports and social network in your area.
At NGM Golf & Sports Consulting we can help you both with the recruitment of sponsors, the organization of a complete tournament calendar, the development and recruitment of your sports academy and the final promotion of your sports club. Do not hesitate and diversify your recruitment channels.